BuzzerBeater Forums

Installment #1

Who we are?
The X-steppers have been around since season 5. I was surprised at this, it feels longer. We never really started training anything until the end of Season 6. I had a couple of older guards that I thought I was improving but got some pointers from Stogey and started over.

Our standing in our League:

We're currently sitting at 17-2 in IV.18. IV.18 feels like a weak league with absolutely no activity on the forums. We're the only team actively managing enthusiasm but not the only team training and scheduling scrimmages. So there's hope that the league could become more competitive. As it stands now, I pretty much win at will. The two losses came early in the season while I was in the cup and still trying to figure out how to get 48 minutes of training for 5 players.

Staff:

Doctor is a level 1 collecting $2681.00 in wages
PR is a level 4 collecting $12,365 in wages
Trainer is a level 5 collecting $29,464 in wages

*I've been actively attempting to purchase a higher level trainer but this new bidding system has been frustrating my efforts to get one on the cheap.


Economy:

Cash: $163,000.00
Weekly profit: 57,000 (league average: 22k)

Expenses: Salaries 57k, Staff 44.5k, Scouting 20K
Revenue: 129k attendance, 14k merchandise, 35k TV

Roster: (actual player attributes will come in installment #2)

11 players for $57,380. My #1 trainee and best player receives $13,236


Arena: Total Capacity 8605 broken down as follows:

7500 bleachers @ $10.00 per seat
1000 Lower Tier @ $35.00 per seat
100 Courtside @ $150.00 per seat
5 Luxury Boxes @ 800.00


I adjusted my pricing to these levels in May because at $11.00 and $42.00 I was not consistantly selling out the bleachers or Lower tier. The new pricing resulted in a total sell out.

Players:
Starting 5
PG:
SG Jorge Alberto Mina (5159170)
Salary:13 236 DMI: 95000
Age: 21 Height: 6'1"
Potential: allstar GS: strong
JS: sensational JR: proficient
OD: proficient Handling: average
Driving: strong Passing: prominent
IS: respectable ID: inept
Reb: inept SB: pitiful
Stam: mediocre FT: prominent
Exp: awful

SG:
SG Louis Solomon (7924116)
Salary:3 382 DMI: 13100
Age: 19 Height: 6'2"
Potential: MVP GS: respectable
JS: awful JR: average
OD: respectable Handling: mediocre
Driving: pitiful Passing: average
IS: respectable ID: awful
Reb: respectable SB: pitiful
Stam: average FT: strong
Exp: atrocious

SF:
PG Gregory Willingham (5159158)
Salary:4 302 DMI: 17500
Age: 27 Height: 6'3"
Potential: star GS: strong
JS: awful JR: respectable
OD: respectable Handling: respectable
Driving: awful Passing: respectable
IS: respectable ID: respectable
Reb: average SB: pitiful
Stam: awful FT: average
Exp: mediocre

PF:
PF Ljubomir Sankovic (843971)
Salary:4 601 DMI: 43900
Age: 24 Height: 6'11"
Potential: allstar GS: proficient
JS: respectable JR: atrocious
OD: respectable Handling: atrocious
Driving: atrocious Passing: atrocious
IS: awful ID: respectable
Reb: strong SB: inept
Stam: respectable FT: mediocre
Exp: inept

Center
C Jorge Bagazgoitia (2349545)
Salary:8 250 DMI: 70900
Age: 28 Height: 7'2" Potential: allstar
GS: strong
JS: inept JR: respectable
OD: mediocre Handling: average
Driving: awful Passing: mediocre
IS: proficient ID: proficient
Reb: proficient SB: atrocious
Stam: strong FT: proficient
Exp: awful

Trainees

PG Harley Delarosa (5653188)
Salary:4 325 DMI: 11400
Age: 20 Height: 6'9" / 206 cm
Potential: perennial allstar GS: average
JS: mediocre JR: strong
OD: awful Handling: inept
Driving: average Passing: proficient
IS: atrocious ID: atrocious
Reb: respectable SB: pitiful
Stam: inept FT: pitiful
Exp: atrocious

PG Adan Mays (7924472)
Salary:3 172 DMI: 35800
Age: 18 Height: 6'1" Potential: perennial allstar
GS: strong
JS: respectable JR: respectable
OD: average Handling: average
Driving: strong Passing: respectable
IS: mediocre ID: respectable
Reb: atrocious SB: pitiful
Stam: mediocre FT: atrocious
Exp: atrocious

C Lynn Barnard (5653210)
Salary: 3 734 DMI: 18800
Age: 21 Height: 7'2"
Potential: perennial allstar GS: strong
JS: pitiful JR: inept
OD: mediocre Handling: atrocious
Driving: mediocre Passing: atrocious
IS: inept ID: average
Reb: average SB: respectable
Stam: respectable FT: proficient
Exp: pitiful

Role Players

SF Jay Nance (5159160)
Weekly salary:3 407 DMI: 16300
Age: 25 Height: 6'5"
Potential: 6th man GS: strong
JS: average JR: mediocre
OD: respectable Handling: atrocious
Driving: mediocre Pass: mediocre
IS: average ID: respectable
Reb: atrocious SB: pitiful
Stam: average FT: mediocre
Exp: inept

SG Julián Noriega (5159163)
Salary:4 759 DMI: 11100
Age: 23 Height: 6'7"
Potential: star GS: average
JS: average JR: respectable
OD: average Handling: mediocre
Driving: awful Pass: awful
IS: inept ID: mediocre
Reb: mediocre SB: atrocious
Stam: average FT: respectable
Exp: pitiful

SF Jerry Pitts (5159157)
Salary:4 212 DMI: 9200
Age: 26 Height: 6'4"
Potential: star GS: average
JS: proficient JR: respectable
OD: pitiful Handling: average
Driving: average Pass: respectable
IS: atrocious ID: atrocious
Reb: mediocre SB: awful
Stam: inept FT: strong
Exp: awful

Good thing I copied my entry before I submitted it. It took me about forever to get the roster to fit into 1 post. Glad I only have 11 players.

So now that I've done all this, I guess I need to decide on a goal. I could be generic and say I want to rise through the ranks as fast as I can and be the champion of the NBBA. However, that wouldn't be true and probably wouldn't fit my personality very well.

I think would I'd like to get out of this is a better understanding of how the game works, how the skills of each player and position affect the outcome of a game. Right now, winning is easy. I can identify some pretty glaring weaknesses in my opponents and adjust pretty simply with a different defense. I imagine that will not be the case as I face better and better teams.

As a side, one of the things that really draws me to games like this is to develop a special player. A player that is not only useful but excels on the national team level. Whether that's a youngster or an NT'er, I'd like to have a pipeline of trainees that could one day benefit the US community as a whole.


Training:

I am currently training Ball Handling for the PG/SG. I had been training pressure this season and did FT over the allstar break.

First I'm wondering about your training plans. You're prob fine with a lvl 5 trainer, as a 6 will cost quite a bit down which might be better used in other areas (arena, trainees, etc).

Are you doing 2 position training for guards? How are you rotating weekly training?

Mina - heads above your other players and a nice trainee.
Solomon - good potential, but a weak trainee
Delarosa - 21, 6'9" and 3 OD, very weak trainee
Mays - very nice, a nearly perfect trainee
Barnard - too many low skills, very weak trainee

To start, I'd think about replacing Solomon/Delarosa/Barnard, they're simply too weak to train and could be upgraded for a pretty small cost.

In the meantime I'd focus on training Mina and Mays at 1 position (faster training and you can do either od/ha/pa at pg or jr at sg). 1 position training might also be a better option if you're looking to build high skilled "special" type players.

You can't do JS (DR can be done with 1 pos HA), but you could focus on their other skills for awhile and wait to see what comes from the draft (both your draft and players listed after it by other teams) to fill out the other 3 trainees for 2-position training.

Solomon, I recently acquired in order to have a 3rd serioud trainee. What is it about him, in particular, that makes him a weak trainee

He does have good height. Potential only really becomes an issue if he's being trained really well and has nice skills for his age. For an almost 20 yo with skills that are ideal for a newly minted 18yo the potential likely wont be realized. I misread his skills at first, thinking he was awful in passing, but thats his id.

Overall i guess he's not the worst trainee, but his JS is so low (and i rate that pretty high for guards) that he wouldnt be someone i would focus on.

Bernard and DelaRosa, I knew were weak. Bernard I was trying to see if I could create a "Dirk Nowitzki" type of player. He is 7' afterall.

Prob is that his inside skills aren't very good and as a 7' he will train most of the guard skills extremely slow.

Id raise prices a little in every area and/or expand if the money is there. If your selling out you're losing potential revenue.

When it comes to changing prices and expanding, better to make smaller changes and do many smaller gradual expansions.

edit - i just copied over and pasted all my previous responses to this thread and deleted them from the other thread.

I have been doing 2 position training. I recently stumbled onto Coco's plans for doing single position training. In the past, I've had a difficult time of making sure that 2 players received 48 minutes at 1 position.

I am perfectly happy and willing to focus on Mina and Mays for the time being. My question can become more of a generic one: At what point is a player too old to be trained? Mina is 21 and while he's far and away my best player, I had thought/planned that at the end of this season, I would be selling him and reinvesting in my team elsewhere.

If I'm focusing on 1 position training, then the question begs, is Solomon good enough to keep as my 2 guard and would he benefit from spot play at pg when by some stroke of luck Mina and Mays both get 48 minutes in the 2 league matches.

Really, I know my team needs upgrades in a variety of areas. I'm just wondering what is more economical in terms of BB. Training or League Advancement? A more specific version of this question. Do I promote to Division III this season? Or do I lose in the championship on purpose in 3 games?

In the past, I've had a difficult time of making sure that 2 players received 48 minutes at 1 position.

If you start Mina in both games at PG with mays as backup and say mays only gets 16 mins after to the league games, you can still start mays without any backups in the scrimmage.

At what point is a player too old to be trained?

Hard to say, and likely depends on your ambitions. I'm training 22/23/23yo players cuase they still have training left in them and I need their quality at the d1 level. Ideally I'd prefer they were 22 or under as they do seem to go slower at 23 (though, that might be due to them approaching the cap?). The younger you can afford to train while not compromising your teams ability the better.

is Solomon good enough to keep as my 2 guard and would he benefit from spot play at pg when by some stroke of luck Mina and Mays both get 48 minutes in the 2 league matches.

Solomon might be ok if you're going to play inside, but with JS of 3, he's not very useful with neutral or outside offenses. If i'm training him its only, at most, to get a couple pops or so and sell to make some kind of profit.

I'm just wondering what is more economical in terms of BB. Training or League Advancement? A more specific version of this question. Do I promote to Division III this season? Or do I lose in the championship on purpose in 3 games?

Definitely go to III if you can. It's one of the nice things about BB compared to HT, in every case Ive seen its been better to promote.

Okay so in unanimous fashion, you two say PROMOTION is the proper way to success in BB.

That being said, if I'm going to focus on Mina and Mays as my primary trainees and the rest of the parts are interchangeable.

Do I wait until I find out where I'm going to land in Division III to size up my competition? Is my team so far behind the 8-ball, that I can't mess up my improvements because for the type of player I'll need in the next series compared to what I'll have now, there's no mistaking?

Here's a generic question. I have attempted to find Big men that can do Big men type stuff. Rebound, ID, IS, SB. Do I care if they can handle the ball or pass? Do I care if they have an outside shot? Likewise, with particular attention to Mays, Do I care that he can't rebound?

Do the teammates all need to be Multi-talented players or can the whole of the team be greater than the total sum of all the parts?

Coco said

I'm still convinced you can make it to II and avoid relegation there without a strong front-court.

This is probably still true and I know that it was true at one time (I believe both Digging for Change and myself are/were guard trainers). The 2-3 zone helps a lot and let you get by with just enough front court (rebounding and inside defense).